2011 Throwball Playoffs

Once again I find myself more interested in the late rather than the early game, but I’ll try to work up some outrage for you anyway.

The early game starts on FOX at 1 pm according to all reputable sources and not the dumbass commentators who’s major qualification for their job is that they’re not quite brain damaged enough to be unable to read from a teleprompter.  In fairness they were probably shilling their pre-game program as well they might because who watches that boring crap anyway?

My mild favorite is the Seahawks who have the good fortune not to be the second most bitter rival of my second favorite team (second favorite team == Packers, most bitter rivals == Vikings).  What’s to like about da Bears?  They’re one of 2 original NFL franchises and they still play outside at Soldier Field.  Also I think they’re an easier opponent for the Pack if it should come to that.

The late game is at 4:30 pm on CBS and pits the loathsome Patsies against the only slightly less loathsome Jets.  What’s so loathsome about the Jets?  Outside of the rampant clubhouse misogyny and their status as one of the most Republican teams in the league (and in the NFL that’s saying a lot), they’re also freeloading squatters in Giants Stadium.  Buncha deadbeat Galts they are.

But the Patsies (look for ‘Gillette Stadium’) are even worse.  Their Hartford Hijack is unforgivable, or at least I’m not ready to make nice.

While it would be good to have the Jets kick their ass, it’s probably not possible so I’ll have to look forward to the Steelers kicking it in the Conference Championships next week or a repeat of Super Bowl XXXI.

The usual nonsense below the fold.

OK, so tell us a little bit about yourself.

I’m the founder of 23 different radical leftist organizations including the Africans Fighting Racism and Oppression or AFRO, if you will, uh, the Black Revolutionary Organization or BRO, uh… and also the Black Revolutionary Underground Heroes…

Um, BRUH?

Yeah, BRUH.

Well, the big news tonight is the Divisional Throwball Playoffs (which I intend to bump when we get past the ceremonial drek).  On broadcast only PBS is pushing a premier of Austin City Limits with The National and Band of Horses.  But there are other things to watch-

• ABC Family– Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, The Goonies
• AMC– The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Demolition Man
• Bravo– House marathon
• Disney– The Suite Life on Deck (part 2 of last night’s premier)
• Discovery– Dirty Jobs marathon
• E!– Honey x 2 (again and again)
• ESPN– Women’s College Basketball, Vanderbilt @ Tennessee
• ESPN2– PBA Bowling (World Championship), Live Poker
• Food– Challenge marathon
• FX– Hellboy
• History– American Pickers marathon
• Lifetime– Dying Young, Erin Brockovich (Julia Roberts night)
• Oxygen– Juno x 2 (again and again)
• Sci Fi– Meteor Storm, Behemoth x 2
• Spike– The Hunted, Ladder 49
• TBS– Meet the Parents, The Love Guru
• Turner Classic– Black Orpheus, Missing (a little new for Turner Classic)
• TNT– Transformers x 2
• Toon– God, the Devil and Bob (new to Toon)
• Vs.– Bullriding, Snowboarding

Why would they lie to me?

Because the truth hurts, Jazmine. The world is a hard and lonely place and nobody gets anything for free. And you want to know what else? One day, you and everyone you know is gonna die.

Later-

Obi-Wan Kenobi once said: “Your eyes can deceive you, don’t trust them.” Seems to be getting harder distinguishing reality from the illusions that people make for us OR from the ones that we make for ourselves… I don’t know, maybe that’s part of the plan. To make me think I’m crazy.

It’s working.

.

• ABC Family– Godzilla
• AMC– Enter the Dragon
• Sci Fi– Disaster Zone: Volcano in New York
• Spike– Waterworld (just as bad as they say it is)
• TBS– Drillbit Taylor
• Turner Classic– Friendly Persuasion
• TNT– Resident Evil: Apocalypse
• USA– The Break-Up
• Vs.– NBA D-League Hoopies

SNL– Gwyneth Paltrow and Cee Lo Green

Boondocks– The Real, A Date With the Health Inspector

And so, we’re raising the Terror Alert Level to intense orange-red, based on very credible, detailed information on a non-specific threat. Could it be a hijacking? Absolutely possible. Chemical or biological agent? You bet it could happen. Suicide bomber? Hey, you never know. But what we do know is that it’s absolutely, positively gonna happen today… maybe.

Evening Edition is an Open Thread

Now with 35 Top Stories.

1 Tunisia’s new leader takes power amid chaos

by Dario Thuburn, AFP

15 mins ago

2011 Throwball Playoffs

It’s hard to say whether having a bye week is an advantage.  On the one hand you have a week to rest up and get healthy (and not expose yourself to further injuries), but on the other hand it does kind of disrupt your practice schedule.  You could point at the record, but I’d say it’s not dispositive since the teams that get the bye are selected based on their superior record and are presumably better teams anyway.

Today Ravens @ Steelers is the early game at 4:30 pm on CBS.  I think the Steelers are as good as anyone this year so I would expect them to have no problem with the Ravens, but I’m frequently wrong and unexpected things happen which is why they play the games.

The late game at 8 pm on FOX I have an actual rooting interest in.  The Packers are my second favorite team in the league and as I explained last week it’s not just an accident of birth.  To quote from Wikipedia–

The Packers are the only non-profit, community-owned franchise in American professional sports major leagues. Typically, a team is owned by one person, partnership, or corporate entity, i.e., a “team owner.” The lack of a dominant owner has been stated as one of the reasons the Green Bay Packers have never been moved from the city of Green Bay, a city of only 102,313 people as of the 2000 census.

…

As of June 8, 2005, 112,015 people (representing 4,750,934 shares) can lay claim to a franchise ownership interest. Shares of stock include voting rights, but the redemption price is minimal, no dividends are ever paid, the stock cannot appreciate in value – though private sales often exceed the face value of the stock, and stock ownership brings no season ticket privileges. No shareholder may own over 200,000 shares, a safeguard to ensure that no individual can assume control of the club. To run the corporation, a board of directors is elected by the stockholders.

…

Green Bay is the only team with this form of ownership structure in the NFL; such ownership is in direct violation of current league rules, which stipulate a limit of 32 owners of one team and one of those owners having a minimum 30% stake. However, the Packers corporation was grandfathered when the NFL’s current ownership policy was established in the 1980s, and are thus exempt. The Packers are also the only American major-league sports franchise to release its financial balance sheet every year.

So Falcons fans (and there must be some of you), it’s not so much that I dislike your team, but they’re in the way of my Packers getting a chance to crush da Bears in the Conference Championships next week.

Nothing personal.

The usual nonsense below the fold.

BP Forms Partnership To Explore In Russia

By JULIA WERDIGIER, The New York Times

Published: January 14, 2011

The British oil giant BP agreed on Friday to a partnership with Rosneft, a Russian company, forming an alliance to explore the Russian Arctic.

…

The two companies would explore three license blocks on the Russian Arctic continental shelf that were awarded to Rosneft last year and span about 50,000 square miles.

…

“This acquisition will almost certainly complicate the politics of levying and collecting damages from BP following their Gulf of Mexico oil spill,” Mr. Markey said.

As part of the agreement, Rosneft and BP will set up an Arctic technology center in Russia “to develop technologies and engineering practices for the safe extraction of hydrocarbon resources from the Arctic shelf,” the companies said in a joint statement.

Presidential Oil Spill Commission Final Report

Some premiers.  The secret ingredient in Mystic Pizza sauce (yes, there actually is such a place) is copious quantities of crushed red pepper.

Klaatu barada nikto.

• AMC– The Day The Earth Stood Still x 2
• Bravo– Jerry Maguire x 2
• Disney– The Suite Life on Deck (premier)
• Discovery– Flying Wild Alaska (Series Premier), Gold Rush (last week’s and new)
• E!– The Soup (premier)
• ESPN– Hoopies, Mavs @ Spurs, Blazers @ Suns
• ESPN2– High School Hoopies, St. Patrick NJ @ Winter Park FL
• FX– Eagle Eye, Hitman
• National Geographic– Dog Whisperer (premier)
• Oxygen– Next Friday x 2
• Sci Fi– Merlin (premier)
• Style– Mystic Pizza
• TBS– Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy x 2
• Turner Classic– 99 River Street, Kansas City Confidential (John Payne night)
• TLC– Say Yes to the Dress marathon (with 2 premiers)
• TNT– The Hulk
• Toon– Clone Wars (Part 2 of the Nightsisters Trilogy)

Later-

• AMC– The Abyss
• Disney– Phineas and Ferb marathon
• FX– Lights Out (Series Premier repeat), Archer (this week’s)
• MTV– Freedom Writers
• Oxygen– Catwoman
• Sci Fi– Merlin (Instapeat)
• Turner Classic– The Crooked Way, To the Shores of Tripoli (more Payne)
• TNT– Deep Blue Sea, The Time Machine

Dave hosts Joan Rivers, Jeff Caldwell, and Wintersleep.  

There’s nothing strange about Washington, Mr. Carpenter.

A person from another planet might disagree with you.

Evening Edition is an Open Thread

1 Tunisian president quits after violent protests

by Mohamed Hasni and Hamida Ben Salah, AFP

14 mins ago

Some premiers.  On an existential note, what is it like to drop out of your timeline entirely and find that your exisitence had no impact whatever on history?

I think I’d dump Bill too.

A good fight should be like a small play, but played seriously. A good martial artist does not become tense, but ready. Not thinking, yet not dreaming. Ready for whatever may come. When the opponent expands, I contract. When he contracts, I expand. And when there is an opportunity, I do not hit. It hits all by itself.

• ABC Family– Van Helsing
• AMC– Enter the Dragon x 2
• Bravo– Real Housewives marathon (with premier)
• Disney– 16 Wishes, Phineas and Ferb
• Discovery– Mythbusters, Sr. v. Jr., Oddities (premier)
• E!– The Princess Diaries
• ESPN– College Hoopies, Purdue @ Minnesota, Virginia Tech @ North Carolina
• ESPN2– College Hoopies, Providence @ West Virginia, Mississippi State @ Mississippi
• Food– Ace of Cakes (premier)
• FX– Double Jeopardy x 2
• History– Conspiracy Theories marathon (with premier)
• Lifetime– Poison Ivy II: Lily
• National Geograhic– Naked Science (premier)
• Sci Fi– Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country
• TBS– 50 First Dates
• Turner Classic– Only Two Can Play, The Millionairess (Peter Sellers night)
• TNT– Hoopies, Magic @ Thunder, Heat @ Nuggets
• Travel– Man v. Food marathon (thank goodness)
• USA– The Break-Up
• VH1– SNL marathon

Keyboard. How quaint.

Later-

I’m going to sleep this off. Please let me know if there’s some other way we can screw up tonight.

• AMC– 48 Hours
• ESPN2– College Hoopies, Loyola Marymount @ Portland
• Sci Fi– Sunshine, Crimson Force
• Turner Classic– I Love You, Alice B. Toklas, What’s New, Pussycat? (more Peter Sellers)
• Travel– Man v. Food marathon (thank goodness)
• VH1– When Harry Met Sally

No, no, no, I never said that… Yes, that’s right, they can’t be friends. Unless both of them are involved with other people, then they can… This is an amendment to the earlier rule. If the two people are in relationships, the pressure of possible involvement is lifted… That doesn’t work either, because what happens then is, the person you’re involved with can’t understand why you need to be friends with the person you’re just friends with. Like it means something is missing from the relationship and why do you have to go outside to get it? And when you say “No, no, no it’s not true, nothing is missing from the relationship,” the person you’re involved with then accuses you of being secretly attracted to the person you’re just friends with, which you probably are. I mean, come on, who the hell are we kidding, let’s face it. Which brings us back to the earlier rule before the amendment, which is men and women can’t be friends.

Dave hosts Kelsey Grammer (ugh), Amar’e Stoudemire, and Gregg Allman.  Jon has Ron Howard, Stephen Kevin Spacey.  Conan hosts Ricky Gervais, Kaitlin Olson, and Cheap Trick.

You know what I am? I’m your worst fuckin’ nightmare, man. I’m a nigger with a badge which means I got permission to kick your fuckin’ ass whenever I feel like it!

Zap2it TV Listings, Yahoo TV Listings

Evening Edition is an Open Thread

1 Tunisia leader says won’t stand again, orders halt to firing

by Mohamed Hasni, AFP

6 mins ago

Tuesday the Presidential Oil Spill Commission released it’s final report.  Some reactions from Google News.

Oil spill panel calls for tighter federal rules, new fees for drilling

By Juliet Eilperin and David S. Hilzenrath, Washington Post Staff Writers

Tuesday, January 11, 2011; 9:16 PM

The presidential oil spill commission said Tuesday that the federal government should require tougher regulation, stiffer fines and a new industry-run safety organization, recommendations that face an uncertain future in the new Congress.

Former senator Bob Graham (D-Fla.), one of the commission’s co-chairmen, said that the Deepwater Horizon accident was “both foreseeable and preventable,” and that Congress and the administration needed to enact reforms in order to prevent a repeat of the massive BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico last year.

“I am sad to say that part of the answer is the fact that our government helped let it happen,” Graham said. “Our regulators were consistently outmatched.”

Oil spill panel calls for reforms, fees

By Juliet Eilperin and David S. Hilzenrath, Washington Post Staff Writers

Wednesday, January 12, 2011

Environmental groups immediately protested that the recommendations do not go far enough, and industry groups argued that the government should stop standing in the way of offshore drilling and production.

While calling for tougher government regulation, the commission also called for the oil and gas industry to establish a “self-policing” organization that would set and enforce safety standards. In addition, it endorsed a system used in the North Sea that calls on drilling companies to assess the risks involved in a particular well and tailor their operations accordingly.

University of Maryland law professor Rena Steinzor, president of the Center for Progressive Reform, said such deference to the companies would be “tragedy compounded,” adding, “If there ever was an industry that didn’t deserve to write its own plans, it’s this one.”

The Next Oil Spill: Five Needed Mandates to Head it Off

Marianne Lavelle, National Geographic News

Published January 11, 2011

As the oil industry forges deeper into riskier waters and other frontiers, both companies and government overseers need to radically overhaul their approach to safety, concluded the U.S. commission appointed by President Obama to examine the causes of BP’s disastrous oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

The seven-member commission agreed unanimously that the spill was not caused by the actions of one rogue player, but by a systemic failure born of years of complacency.

“In the past 20 years, exploration moved into deeper and deeper and riskier and riskier areas of the Gulf of Mexico, resulting in abundant revenues for private companies and the federal Treasury,” said former Florida Senator Bob Graham, co-chairman of the panel.

Oil spill’s health effects raise concern, but are unproven, commissioner says

By David Hammer, The Times-Picayune

Wednesday, January 12, 2011, 8:20 PM

But in the end, the commissioners had to admit that their recommendation that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency establish stricter monitoring of the health effects of major spills is unlikely to help those who say their work in oiled waters and marshes has raised the level of carcinogenic benzene in their bodies and caused the onset of respiratory and intestinal illnesses.

A really deep and worthwhile article.

Berms and boom were largely ineffective responses to oil spill, panel reports

Jonathan Tilove, NOLA.com

Thursday, January 13, 2011, 7:35 AM

About of a third of the way through the National Oil Spill Commission’s 400-page report, there is a 43-page chapter on the oil spill response and containment efforts that suggests that berms and boom were pretty much a bust, collecting more headlines than oil.

About what you would expect, but confirmed in more detail.

Halliburton’s Legal Fate in Gulf Spill Still Uncertain

By LAWRENCE HURLEY of Greenwire, The New York Times

Published: January 13, 2011

The release Tuesday of the federal oil spill commission’s report into the Deepwater Horizon disaster raises further questions about when Halliburton Co. will be added to the list of defendants in the federal government’s civil complaint filed last month.

The Justice Department named nine defendants, including BP PLC and Transocean Ltd., when it filed its lawsuit in the Eastern District of Louisiana, but Halliburton, which played a major role in the Deepwater Horizon drilling operation, was conspicuous by its absence (Greenwire, Dec. 15, 2010).

The government is expected to announce criminal charges relating to the spill at some point, but so far, the focus has been on civil enforcement under such statutes as the Clean Water Act and the Oil Pollution Act. All the parties involved are also named as defendants in hundreds of private lawsuits filed by individuals and businesses affected by the spill.

It’s not entirely impossible we’ll see some perp walks, these guys did murder 11 people.

Deepwater Horizon Report Raises Further Obstacles to New Alaska Oil Drilling

January 12, 2011, 2:09 PM GMT

The report, which blamed specific mistakes by BP, Halliburton and Transocean as well as wider industry failings for the oil spill, said drilling can continue in the Gulf of Mexico with improved oversight, but questioned whether anyone would be capable of dealing with a similar accident if it occurred off the coast of Alaska.

There are, “serious concerns about the Arctic oil spill response, containment, and search and rescue,” in the chief areas of offshore drilling interest-Alaska’s Chukchi and Beaufort seas-the commission said.

“Current federal emergency response capabilities in the region are very limited: the Coast Guard operations base nearest to the Chukchi region is on Kodiak Island, approximately 1,000 miles from the leasing sites. The Coast Guard does not have sufficient ice-class vessels capable of responding to a spill under Arctic conditions,” the report said.

Gulf oil disaster has changed pace for drilling permits, official says

Jonathan Tilove, NOLA.com

Thursday, January 13, 2011, 12:02 PM

Michael Bromwich said that he is asked, “when will the pace of permitting return to the pre-April 20 level, and the honest answer is, probably never.”

So maybe some good news for the environment.